1. Field of the Invention
This invention generally relates to the field of computer based search systems, and more particularly relates to a system and method for visually searching knowledge bases.
2. Description of Related Art
Knowledge repositories are collections of information in computer system for capturing expertise in some strategic area. Their purpose is to retain and disseminate expert information to a user, such as within a corporation. An example of a knowledge repository in a computer software consulting company would be a set of documents describing what strategies have been used effectively in the past to win business away from each of the company""s chief competitors.
The elements of the knowledge repository under consideration here are in electronic form and available for distribution. The size of the repository could outnumber several million separate pieces of information. Typically, the vastness of the knowledge repository causes users to rely primarily on search engines to retrieve information.
A typical search engine possesses a user interface with a search window where the user enters an alphanumeric search expression or keywords. The search engine sifts through a database of information for the user""s search terms, and returns the search results in the form of HTML pages. Each search result includes a list of individual entries that have been identified by the search engine as satisfying the user""s search expression. Each entry or xe2x80x9chitxe2x80x9d includes a hyperlink that points to a location within the database. In addition to the hyperlink, certain search engine result pages include a summary or abstract that describes the content of the document. Other information may also be returned as part of a search result in response to a user""s request.
Although search engines have made tremendous strides at improvement in recent years, the user interface can still be very complicated to use. Primarily, these interfaces place too many burdens on the inexperienced user to know which words to enter to retrieve only the best documents. As a further complication, the form of the result pages may not adequately indicate which documents truly contain the most relevant information for the user. Then, the user is forced to manually sort through a long list of results to try and determine what is most important to him. Additionally, for complex searches, users may even be called upon to employ Boolean operators, all of which serve to further confuse users.
Therefore a need exists to overcome the problems with the prior art as discussed above, and particularly for a user interface that visually displays corresponding search results and guides the user in exploring a knowledge repository.
According to a preferred embodiment of the present invention, a computing system and method provides a visual display for exploring a knowledge repository. This preferred method assumes that a knowledge expert has created a set of multiple partitionings of the knowledge repository according to the content of the knowledge elements, as well as a separate dictionary of terms for each partitioning. The method comprises the steps of accepting a natural language query, calculating the distance between the query string and a plurality of categories in partitions of a knowledge repository; and displaying, via a radial graph, at least one category that comprises a nearest distance to the query. Further, in response to the user selecting a category, the method visually displays all matching elements in that category along with its nearest neighbor categories in a scatter plot. This preferred method advantageously guides the user to better refine search queries.